lopez wrote:With how viral social media has become, things like NDA's are a basic necessity.

Makes me wonder, when did localization changes become such a hypersensitive issue?

Because, like with many other things, the Internet let people see the other versions as well as connect them to like minded individuals more so than before. Before it

It does also seem to be on the rise lately, depending on your perspective. There seemed to be this period in the late 2000s and early 2010s where localizations weren't going this route anymore as much, then boom, censorship! Asia only localizations! And so on!

Of course people also ignore some of these things still technically being an improvement. Censored Monpiece and Criminal Girls now is a lot more than we would've gotten (and did get) even a couple of years beforehand, after all.

There was a recent interview with IFI over on Operation Rainfall, where they talked about localization choices and how, in many cases, they had to do stuff like find an English equivalent of some obscure Japanese joke. People there were praising them for trying to remain close to the original Japanese.

When NISA does the exact same thing, people have yelled at them for being unfaithful and making something incorrect.

When Atlus said they discussed things with the ratings boards, they were generally praised.But when NISA said they discussed things with the ratings boards, it either didn't count since it was "unofficial" or they are lying about it.

People will believe what they want to believe, be it if they need to nitpick or ignore details entirely.

Rednal wrote:There was a recent interview with IFI over on Operation Rainfall, where they talked about localization choices and how, in many cases, they had to do stuff like find an English equivalent of some obscure Japanese joke. People there were praising them for trying to remain close to the original Japanese.

When NISA does the exact same thing, people have yelled at them for being unfaithful and making something incorrect.

I think it depends. Like, if it's actually an equivalent, then that's a good thing.

When it's not actually equivalent and just being put in, which is an issue I've found with both, then you have issues cropping up. Same with other kinds of consistency.

Ringwraith wrote:But that's why you have to try and find an equivalent, because it probably won't translate directly and still have its intended effect, so you need something that does.

Here's the problem:

1 - going under the assumption that you can gauge an entire nation's experience.

2 - going under the assumption that you can find a true foreign equivalent that will give the same experience as problem #1.

2.1 - under the usual case that you can't. It becomes a dilemma whether you keep it in or "localize" it. In the long run, keeping it in is better, sure, "localizing" might have more people understand it, but it becomes a moot point if it's not of the original context. Keeping the original context intact may have less people understand it at first, but it opens doors to a wider perspective and understanding of another culture or whatever, and that's part of the appeal of a foreign game.

3 - paradox, going under the assumption that this practice is necessary implies people of a nation are turned off from experiences of a foreign nation. Goes along with problem #4.

4 - contradiction, if this liberty is a necessity, the decision itself to localize the foreign game over would not make sense. Also tied to problem #3.

Ultimate_Nova_X, the only reason you believe some of that is because you don't understand how different Japanese and English are. Equivalents over direct translations are far more common than you realize.For example, おはよう does not actually mean "good morning" in its most literal rendition into English, but it gets translated into that almost every time because that's how it's used. Even if you were to try to keep the literal meaning in some way (say, going with "you're up early" instead), you're still changing it to make it legible to an English-speaking reader.It's important to remember that any given language will have nuances behind it that simply do not carry over into translation. This is true even of closely related languages, and thus incredibly so for ones from two different linguistic families. I would agree with the point that the cultural influence within something that gets localized shouldn't be glossed over, but that just isn't as applicable to language.

redsilversnake wrote:Ultimate_Nova_X, the only reason you believe some of that is because you don't understand how different Japanese and English are. Equivalents over direct translations are far more common than you realize.

Uhh, as someone who is fluent in English and Mandarin and knows Japanese less well but still better than most NA netizens, I think I understand quite well what the differences are.

And they're still not that common...

redsilversnake wrote:For example, おはよう does not actually mean "good morning" in its most literal rendition into English, but it gets translated into that almost every time because that's how it's used. Even if you were to try to keep the literal meaning in some way (say, going with "you're up early" instead), you're still changing it to make it legible to an English-speaking reader.It's important to remember that any given language will have nuances behind it that simply do not carry over into translation. This is true even of closely related languages, and thus incredibly so for ones from two different linguistic families. I would agree with the point that the cultural influence within something that gets localized shouldn't be glossed over, but that just isn't as applicable to language.

...But that wasn't my point. I was directing my point mainly to the cultural influences and references, which you seem to agree.

Language itself is a slightly different matter, as we are talking about hard words with hard meaning and with (generally) specific usages. If the way it is used is largely the same between 2 languages, I don't really see the need to go the extra mile of translating it out of context just so we can get the literal meaning out.

And ohayou is an easy example, it's used in one specific context, so one could grab the translated language equivalent to put in place, even if it isn't what it literally means. Try ごきげんよう, heck, we can't even translate 兄 or 姉 or to English without using two words (though that's not a problem given based on my ohayou example, but I was trying to show a point that there's not many true equivalents out there).

But back to my original point, language is only part of a culture, being aware of the latter does not necessarily entail one would also need to know the former.

Ultimate_Nova_X wrote:The more a gap you make in a localization, the wider the gap becomes.

Depends how obscure it is and how much explaining it'd take.Sometimes you can throw something in because it's not difficult to put the pieces together, other times it's just so obtuse to anyone who didn't spend a lot time with it, (obscure references/jokes are the biggest offender here) it just won't work.

References specifically would probably be best handled on a case-by-case basis. The typical anime or manga can get away with a Dragonball or Death Note reference, but as Ringwraith says, it won't go over nearly as well with something more obscure, especially if said obscurity is limited to a non-Japanese audience while actually being well-known enough in Japan itself.